"No... No recovery!?" The Oddities screamed in disbelief.

"Why wasn't the damage transferred? This is impossible!"

Zhu Shi swung her sword through the empty air, flicking off the blood on the blade.

She glanced at the Oddities lying on the ground and said mercilessly, "Zhuang Cheng, cauterize his wounds."

At her words, I looked at the Oddities, and flames suddenly erupted from the stumps of his limbs.

The wounds were scorched black, and blood no longer gushed out.

He let out a miserable scream but hadn't given up on survival yet.

He was still trying to manipulate the surrounding shadows.

However, just as those shadows began to surge, I destroyed them with fire, rendering them useless.

It seemed he could no longer trap us in the labyrinth space again.

Most likely, as Zhu Shi had speculated, he had relied on some kind of consumable item to perform his earlier feats.

Now, he was truly defeated.

But how did Zhu Shi prevent him from recovering his body? I had tried repeatedly before but failed every time.

It didn’t seem like the Oddities "life count" had been completely exhausted, either.

I wondered if Zhu Shi would be willing to tell me the answer if I asked her privately later.

The cold, piercing blue light in Zhu Shi's eyes faded back to normal, and her indifferent expression also disappeared.

I deactivated my fire-element form, walked over to her, and said, "Sorry, I stole your moment to shine just now."

"I was just casually saying that—I wasn’t really blaming you," she replied.

But then she quietly added, "Although... I really did want to show off in front of you just this once..."

"Didn't you already do great just now?" I said, looking at the pitiful figure of the Oddities on the ground.

Zhu Shi also gazed at the wretched enemy on the floor, but she didn’t show any pride or sense of accomplishment.

Instead, she sighed deeply, her expression complicated.

"You're the one who’s been murdering local elites for the past two months, aren't you? We have some questions for you," she said.

However, the Oddities paid no attention to her.

He only muttered frantically, "Impossible, impossible... Why... Why didn't it recover? Why was the labyrinth destroyed..."

"Oh, you're talking about the method to destroy the labyrinth? Actually, it's quite simple. I—" I started to explain but was immediately met with a sharp glare from beside me.

Zhu Shi deliberately snapped at me, "Senior Brother Zhuang, can you not explain your techniques to the enemy?"

Why did she have to call me Senior Brother Zhuang at a time like this...

I swallowed my explanation.

It wasn’t that I didn’t understand the consequences of explaining my tactics—

I was fully aware and still chose to do it.

But even if I said that, she wouldn’t accept it.

Since she was so firm about this, I’d better hold back next time.

After all, I’d already done things like this before, fulfilling some items on my bucket list.

Making a small concession to a friend over such trivial matters wasn’t a big deal.

Zhu Shi sighed again, as if exhausted.

"So, what should we do with him next? Capturing him alive doesn’t seem feasible, right?" I asked.

Before she could answer, a somewhat familiar voice suddenly called out from a distance: "Since he hasn’t self-destructed yet, let’s interrogate him while we can."

Zhu Shi and I turned toward the voice simultaneously.

A young man wearing a mix of modern and traditional deep-blue clothing was walking toward us from the far end of the field.

"Patrol Lu, why are you here?" Zhu Shi asked in surprise.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

When I had entered my fire-elemental form earlier, I hadn’t sensed Patrol Lu's presence.

He must have arrived after I returned to my normal state.

"There were intense and frequent mana fluctuations coming from here, but then they suddenly vanished. Of course, I had to come and check it out," Patrol Lu replied with a smile before his expression turned serious as he looked at the Oddities on the ground.

"Is this him?"

Zhu Shi nodded.

"Yes, but he doesn’t seem willing to answer our questions honestly. Do you have a way to make him talk?"

"Leave it to me. This is my job now," Patrol Lu said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a black ring, slipping it onto the middle finger of his right hand.

As he approached, I got a clear look at the ring.

It was a black ring seemingly woven from iron wire, with faint traces of dried blood on its surface.

Once he wore it, his right hand turned translucent and ghostly, almost like a phantom's hand.

The Oddities was still struggling, but Patrol Lu stepped in front of him, crouched down, and thrust his spectral right hand directly into the man's chest.

Despite being blown apart by my attacks and having his limbs severed by Zhu Shi, the Oddities body was undoubtedly incredibly tough.

Yet in front of Patrol Lu's hand, his body seemed as defenseless as tofu.

Wait, no—that wasn’t right.

Upon closer inspection, his body hadn’t been physically pierced.

Patrol Lu's hand had phased straight through his chest, as if using some kind of intangibility technique.

From the position of his hand, it seemed like he was clutching the man's heart.

The Oddities froze instantly, like a cat being grabbed by the scruff of its neck.

"I’m holding his heart now," Lu Youxun said calmly.

"From here on, he won’t be able to lie to us, nor can he remain silent."

Was this the power of that ring? What a terrifying artifact.

While I was still marveling at it, Zhu Shi—unfazed—began her questioning: "Were you the one who attacked my brother... who attacked Zhu Chang'an?"

The Oddities eyes darted around wildly, as if searching for a way to escape, but his mouth moved against his will: "Who is Zhu Chang'an?"

"It wasn’t you?" Zhu Shi was stunned.

I pulled out my phone, brought up a photo of Chang'an, and held it in front of the man. "Do you recognize this person?"

The Oddities mouth twitched as if he was fighting against some invisible force, but eventually, he answered: "I don’t know him..."

Zhu Shi and I exchanged a glance.

The one who attacked Chang'an was undoubtedly the Oddities—or at least, so we had assumed.

But now, the man before us didn’t recognize Chang'an’s name or face.

In other words, there were indeed more strange individuals lurking in this city.

Patrol Lu reached into his pocket with his free left hand and pulled out a photograph.

I caught a glimpse of it—it was a close-up portrait of Ma Zao.

I had seen this same photo before when Agent Kong first came to visit.

He held the photo in front of the Oddities and asked, "Do you recognize this girl?"

This was a question I was also desperate to know the answer to.

However, under Zhu Shi's and Patrol Lu's watchful gazes, I couldn’t allow myself to appear overly eager or concerned.

Fortunately, Patrol Lu had asked on my behalf.

But if the Oddities did have any information, it would inevitably be heard by Patrol Lu as well—there was no way around that.

When the Oddities saw the photograph, his eyes widened in shock. "It’s her!"

"You’ve seen her?" I asked immediately.

"Last night, I was hunting for prey in the New District when she suddenly appeared from the shadows and attacked me…" the Oddities said, his mouth moving against his will.

"Any damage I inflicted on her would heal almost instantly, but for some reason, the damage she dealt to me couldn’t recover on the spot."

"And in front of her, I couldn’t even enter the shadow world for some reason. All I could do was keep running… I don’t know how long I ran before I finally managed to escape…"

He really had encountered Ma Zao!

And Ma Zao actually attacked him—why?

Did Ma Zao see these strange individuals as a sign of the apocalypse? Did she attack him because she was trying to gather evidence about the impending catastrophe?

From what the Oddities said, Ma Zao seemed to have some sort of healing ability and could even prevent her enemies from using their powers.

But if she could heal, why didn’t she heal herself when she was with me? Was her ability limited to visible injuries, or was she so severely wounded back then that even her healing powers couldn’t activate until recently?

I immediately asked where in the New District he had encountered Ma Zao.

The Oddities answered honestly.

But I also caught another detail. "She can use spatial teleportation powers. Are you sure you managed to escape her?"

"Spatial teleportation?" The Oddities looked confused.

"No, she never used spatial teleportation in front of me…"

"She was able to injure you and even forced you to flee in panic. It seems that this lost-soul girl possesses at least a high-level combat ability," Patrol Lu said thoughtfully.

"But are you absolutely certain you escaped? It’s extremely difficult to shake off someone with spatial teleportation powers through normal movement alone. Moreover, it seems like she deliberately avoided showing her teleportation abilities in front of you… Are you sure she didn’t follow you?"

Tail-trailing was the method I had initially planned to use on this Oddities.

I had never considered the possibility that Ma Zao might have done the same.

But it was entirely plausible.

If I could think of tailing the Oddities to lure out Ma Zao, then Ma Zao could have also thought of tailing the Oddities to investigate clues related to the impending apocalypse.

In other words, Ma Zao might be nearby right now?

I scanned my surroundings but saw no signs of anyone else.

Earlier, when I had entered my elemental state, I hadn’t sensed anyone either.

Even so, I couldn’t rule out the possibility that Ma Zao was monitoring us from a greater distance.

It wasn’t just me—Patrol Lu and Zhu Shi also seemed to be subtly observing the area.

At that moment, the Oddities suddenly moved.

Perhaps driven by an overwhelming desire to survive, his observational abilities had been pushed to their limits.

He must have realized that this moment was his last chance.

He let out an ear-piercing roar, drawing our attention to him.

Almost simultaneously, the shadows at our feet thickened and spread rapidly, turning the ground beneath us into something that felt soft and swamp-like.

He was trying to drag us into the shadow world.

However, even now, I hadn’t let my guard down against such a trick.

His final gambit was destined to fail.

Even Patrol Lu didn’t look surprised.

Instead, he quickly withdrew his phantom-like hand from the Oddities chest, as if preparing to do something.

But the fastest among us was Zhu Shi.

With an expressionless face, she swung her sword downward like a bolt of lightning, stabbing it into the ground.

The shadows recoiled as if their weak spot had been struck, retreating rapidly in reverse, returning to their ordinary, inert state.

Seeing this, the Oddities face finally showed true despair.

His grotesque and powerful body began to rapidly shrink and transform, turning into the appearance of an ordinary human.

Yet, in sharp contrast to this human-like form, his entire body began to swell grotesquely, the skin bulging and distorting in a horrifying manner, as if he was about to explode from within.

He was going to self-destruct!